Shall you Change Company? The #1 indicator

What is the right time to change company? What are the best conditions? Let's find it out!

This newsletter will be short. I will try to convey one, simple, key idea that guided my journey as a Software Engineer over the last 4 years.

When I talk with people one recurring question is “How do I understand when it’s the right time to move on and change company?“.

Especially if you’re early in your career, my answer is always the same.

In the first years of our careers, we want to maximize one key metric: our learning speed.

Now, learning can be defined in multiple ways: it can be a new language, a new technology, or something more general like mentoring others, building a complex system, and so on.

When we notice that we’re not learning as much as we want, that’s the right time to start looking for other options.

When we have a new challenge, we usually learn really fast the basics, and after a certain amount of time (based on the topic's complexity) we reach a learning plateau.

If you feel you’re in a learning plateau for a long time, this means that you’re not improving and you’re “stuck“ at your current level.

The first thing to do in this case is quite easy: talk with your manager!

Explain to her your feelings, backed by proof, and explain that you want to learn more. Try to create a learning plan together or gather more responsibilities in the organization.

In case your manager is not supportive you may evaluate a team change in the same organization. If that doesn’t help as well, then you should evaluate growing opportunities in other companies.

There are other factors (like salary, benefits, product, industry) that may drive a company change, but as soon as you’re learning and becoming a more valuable engineer, you will be fine!

In case you want, feel free to book a chat next week to talk about career growth, how to become a better engineer or even the recipe for the perfect carbonara! Cannot wait to talk with new people :D